


spun-glass heart

by Lirazel



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony was always the only one who could make her shatter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spun-glass heart

There’s no way she could ever _not_ think of him, of course ( _she lied to him, that night in the car after dropping Sid off at the airport—the first time she saw him, it wasn’t sex she thought about—or, at least, not just sex_ ). He’s always there, taken up residence in her mind alongside knowledge of how to apply mascara perfectly in the dark in a moving car, the memory of Chris’s laugh, a conscience that sounds a lot like Jal, a catalogue of all the things she’s hated about her mother’s husbands, Sid’s phone number, and A-level Spanish vocabulary. She figured out long ago that she couldn’t exorcise him even if she spent her whole life trying, and so she doesn’t try to kick him out.

Instead, she’s figured out what memories are acceptable and which aren’t, sorting them and then putting them in their places. For instance, it’s okay to think about him as the first boy she ever loved—but the word _only_ should never, ever, ever enter her mind. She can remember the way he called her Nips despite her protestations till she thought she would throw something at him—but not about the way he would gasp _Chelle_ when he moved inside her. She can dwell on how he made her laugh and made her cry—but not about how he made her feel so _much_ that she’d never be able to express it. She can acknowledge his brilliant brain, the one that made it so easy to manipulate people but also, when he tried, let him figure out exactly the right thing to say to her—but not how _brave_ he was when his whole world fell apart, and all the many ways failed him.

She gets pretty good at it, honestly, even tells a few funny stories to her dormmates about her ex-boyfriend back home, the one she left behind when she left home. She dates some new guys, all of them nice, who treat her well, and appreciate her, she likes them, and if they don’t last, well, she’s young, and this is part of the university experience, right? She’s doing well—studying hard but having a social life, too, and it feels right, moving towards the future and knowing she’ll make something of herself: that she isn’t just a pretty face ( _she remembers that time she told Jal that what she did was look shaggable, and she’d said it lightheartedly as though it didn’t matter at all, but she’s always wanted more, even in the times when she most didn’t believe she’d get it_ ).

But sometimes—sometimes it hits her in the face, just how weak she is. A picture stuck in a book, the chorus of some song they danced to at some anonymous party, the scent of spliff wafting down a hallway: it will flood into her and her memories will overflow the banks of the canals she’s made to guide thoughts of him to where she wanted them to go, and she feels as though she’ll burst from trying to hold all of those memories inside.

One night, back before they started to grow up and everything fell apart ( _before Chris, before the bus, beforebeforebefore_ ), they were sitting on the landing outside of Maxxie’s parents’ flat, music from a beat-up stereo tangling in the sticky summer heat, their legs dangling over the edge, and Anwar and Chris were seeing who could spit further off the edge, and Jal and Sid were talking about classes, and Maxxie had gone inside to get some ice cream, and she put her head on Tony’s shoulder and said, “I’ve never met anyone like you, Tony Stonem.”

He had smirked, of course, because this was before the accident, and that’s what Tony _did_. And he’d said, “That’s because there is no one like me, Nips.”

The world’s a really big place, she’s finding, and she’s starting to explore more and more of it, and there’s a whole hell of a lot to see. But maybe the thing she’s most scared of is that he’s right.

When those moments come ( _those infuriating, terrible moments when she’s sure that she’ll walk the whole world over in three-inch heels and never find anything that can compare to Tony Stonem_ ), she feels brittle, her skin stretched thin and turned to glass, and it’s all she can do not to shatter.


End file.
